Research and Publications Update

The blog has slowed down to a dead stop. Blogging about the issues that most interest me is inadvisable for a number of reasons while I live here in Central Asia.

Moving along…My research for most of this last year (and the second half of 2011) has been on the connections between Afghanistan and the countries of post-Soviet Central Asia (security mostly). Apparently that was not the best choice for a postdoctoral career trajectory. None of my postdoctoral fellowship applications were successful so I have been cast out of academia to wander Central Asia. I am currently unemployed in Tajikistan, which is actually OK since the locals understand the plight of the unemployed quite well.

So, in lieu of an informative blog post I will provide an update on my publications. First of all, my book on Tajikistan should be out early this year. It’s co-authored with someone smarter than me and it should help to fill a few holes in the scholarship on Tajikistan. Unless the title gets vetoed, it will be published as “Tajikistan: A Social and Political History.” We are not fans of clever titles.

Next up is a journal publication:

‘Muslim Soldiers in Non-Muslim Militaries at War in Muslim Lands: The Soviet, American and Indian Experience,’ Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2012).

If you have an institutional subscription, you can get a copy here. If not, send me an email and I will reply with a PDF of the article.

If and when I return to wherever it is that is home, expect the blogging and critical commentary to resume.

Here’s a picture of some Tajik snow (and my future home if I don’t find work soon):